The Australian War Memorial Collection. Test site
Collection of relating to the Second World War service and military career of SF64671 Lieutenant Colonel Margaret Maude Berry, Australian Women's Army Service (AWAS) and Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC), Australia, United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Germany, Egypt, Libya, Cyprus, 1941-1977.
Wallet 1 of 4 - consists of one diary written by Captain Berry during her service with 4 Military District, South Australia, dated 6 January 1942 to 1 January 1943. Written in third person, Berry describes forming the new training school and administrative duties undertaken with fellow AWAS officers, including SF64673 Lieutenant Olive Michelmore, SF64782 Lieutenant Eileen Pratt and SF64672 Captain Dorothy May. Berry writes of delays in receiving uniforms, drill, organising lectures, defending the barracks at Arthur's Seat, Crafers, from bushfires, trainee wellbeing, relocating to Semaphore, blackout conditions, digging trenches, recreational pastimes, and interactions with other military officials and units.
Wallet 2 of 4 - consists of one diary written by Captain Berry, dated 11 October 1942 to 19 February 1943. Berry records daily entries on her regular duties, including interviewing enlistees, growing rates of enlistment, organising postings for AWAS personnel, increased demand for signallers and anti-aircraft gunners, overseeing barrack conditions, parades and inspections. Her daily entries are candid, often recording her frustrations and need to deescalate disputes with her male army equivalents. In one entry, Berry describes rebuking an allegation that her personnel hide medical conditions, instead insisting that enlistment examinations should include questions specific to women's health.
Wallet 3 of 4 - consists of one diary written by Captain Berry preceding her promotion and transfer, dated 20 February to 29 May 1943. Berry describes her supervisory role across South Australia, attending meetings, making recommendations for discharge, commission and discipline, resolving personnel disputes, and inspections of AWAS personnel across the state, including the 12 Anti-Aircraft and 58 Anti-Aircraft Searchlight Companies. Berry also remarks on equipment and kit shortages, tennis matches between the AWAS and Women's Auxiliary Australian Air Force (WAAAF), supporting married personnel with postings or transfers, and her satisfaction watching junior staff build confidence and excelling in their duties. Berry's final entries in May 1943 acknowledge her promotion to the rank of major, upcoming transfer to the Second Australian Army and a final parade dedicated in her honour on 26 May 1943.
Wallet 4 of 4 - consists of 13 documents related to Lieutenant Colonel Berry's military career and the history of women's services. Material from the immediate post-war period includes a captioned photograph of Berry in uniform and two booklets containing presentations by Berry, c.1946. In her addresses, Berry outlines the contributions of women's auxiliary services in the war, her role in establishing the Women's Australian National Services (WANS) in South Australia, and her desire for women to lead in national decision-making. After the disbandment of the AWAS and WANS, Berry delivered several more addresses for passing out parades and annual meetings of personnel between 1947 and 1956. Berry recounts her service with the Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC) in the post-war period, including the crisis in Cyprus. The wallet also contains a biographical overview of Berry's life, c.1970s.
Oversize folio 1 of 3 - contains three certificates from Lieutenant Colonel Berry's military career, including a commissioning certificate (dated 28 May 1942), a certificate of service with the AWAS (dated 7 March 1947), and a commissioning certificate for the [British] Land Forces in February 1949.
Oversize folio 2 of 3 - contains loose scrapbook pages with newspaper clippings, featuring articles on Berry's career and women in military service during the Second World War and post-war period.
Oversize folio 3 of 3 - contains three photographs of the WRAC, including a group photograph of the Junior Officers' conference in 1948, and two photographs of personnel marching, dated April 1954.
Album 1 of 4 - consists of a dark maroon scrapbook, containing photographs and inserts related to Berry's AWAS service across South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania, 1941-1977. Included are photographs of the first training school at Arthur's Seat, receiving uniforms, inspections, duties such as searchlight operation and mechanical repairs, personnel and barracks. The scrapbook also contains several AWAS unit colour patches, ephemera such as an invitation from General Sir Thomas Blamey, 1941 Christmas card, poems and AWAS reunion attendee lists from the 1960s and 1970s.
Album 2 of 4 - consists of a blue-coloured scrapbook with images and ephemera during Berry's early WRAC career, 1947-1949. Photographs depict barracks and training schools across England and Northern Ireland, duties during the Berlin Airlift, and images of other WRAC personnel on duty. The scrapbook also contains a copy of a 1948 address by the Controller-Commandant, Princess Mary, as well as a ticket and permits (in English and Russian) for Berry's posting to Berlin.
Album 3 of 4 - consists of a navy-blue, embossed scrapbook related to Berry's WRAC service across Cyprus and Libya, dated 1956-1957. The album contains photographs of Berry and WRAC personnel in Episkopi, Nicosia, Cyrenaica and Tripoli, including bases and barracks, travel between postings, parades, picnics, archaeological sites, and provost officers. Notably, one image features a plane wreckage from a terrorist bombing in Nicosia while another group photograph features CIA agent, William Pierce Boteler, with Berry after the Queen's Birthday Parade; Berry's caption indicates Boteler was killed in a terror attack one week later.
Album 4 of 4 - consists of one red scrapbook, containing photographs and printed captions of the WRAC during Berry's appointment as Assistant Director Women's Royal Army Corps, c.1956-1957. The black and white photographs depict Berry and other WRAC personnel in Egypt and Cyprus. The album also contains a signed print of Brigadier Dame Mary Tyrwhitt, Director of the Auxiliary Territorial Service and WRAC, and printed ephemera from Brigadier Dame Mary Railton's visit in 1957.
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